Late Wednesday night, Spurs guard George Hill summed up the greatest night of his professional life in one telling word.

“Long,” he said.

After scoring a career-best 30 points and swiping a career-best five steals in the Spurs' 119-102 thumping of the Houston Rockets, Hill couldn't wait to celebrate by going home and going to bed.

It had been a long month and a long season for the second-year combo guard, who has put substantially more mileage on his 23-year-old legs than he did as a rookie.

A year ago, Hill totaled 1,270 minutes in 77 games, a significant uptick from his workload in college. This season, Hill has topped that number by almost 1,000 minutes, and the odometer is still rolling.

That so-called “rookie wall” everyone warned him about last season?

“I feel like I hit it this season,” Hill said.

So far, Hill has soldiered on. In a March spent predominantly as the Spurs' starting point guard with Tony Parker sidelined, Hill averaged 16.5 points, 4.4 assists and shot 50.5 percent from the field.

Hill's only game out of double figures came in a two-point showing in a 110-84 loss at Orlando, the Spurs' opponent tonight at the AT&T Center. The Spurs can clinch a playoff berth with a victory over the Magic and a Memphis loss to New Orleans.

His scoring average (12.7 points per game) is up seven from last season, the second-highest jump in the league for a sophomore behind that of New York's Danilo Gallinari.

“The fact that he knows he's going to play 40 minutes now really changes your head,” Ginobili said. “If you screw up a couple times, you know you're going to have another chance. You play so much more freely.”

A year ago, Hill saw the other side. It was about this time that coach Gregg Popovich all but ruled his rookie out of the playoff rotation.

This year, Hill is certain to remain a key part of the operation heading into the postseason. So should this season's prized rookie, DeJuan Blair, the Spurs' only player besides Hill to appear in all 74 games.

A 6-foot-7 rebounder with endless energy, Blair figured he'd burst through the rookie wall like the Kool-Aid Man. The rigors of the NBA season, however, proved too powerful.

Blair never played more than 37 games in his two college seasons at Pittsburgh, and never logged more than 972 minutes. This season, he's totaled 1,352.

Blair is averaging 7.7 points and 6.3 rebounds, good for a rookie role player, but was up and down in March. Popovich practically had to drag Blair from a March 5 win over New Orleans, when the big rookie could barely make it up the floor near the end of his 32-minute outing.

With his burly frame and full beard, it can be easy to forget that Blair is still too young to legally drink. When the Spurs played in Los Angeles for the first time this season, Popovich was amused to find the rookie had never been there before.

“We try to remember he's 20,” Popovich said.

Hill, by comparison, is an elder statesman. If he's not playing like a rookie anymore, it's because he isn't.

Amid the longest basketball season of his life, Hill has found the way to power through.

“You do feel the grind, but this is my job,” Hill said. “I have to be ready each night.”